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Stars: Elle Newlands, Frank Gangarossa, Chris Pentzell, Christine Blackburn, David Banks, Andrea Leithe, Danny Pardo, Skyler Cooper, Jennifer Popagain, Elina Madison, Anora Lyn, Rachel Sorsa, Daniel Schweiger | Written by Mark Cardone, Laree’ D. Griffith , Betsy Morris, Linda Palmer, Chris Pentzell | Directed by Linda Palmer

One of the mandates of my film writing has to always try and uncover gems within in the independent film scene and promote films that might otherwise fly under the radar of audiences and other film bloggers alike. With that mandate comes the knowledge that I could posssibly be subjecting myself to the kinds of movies that, in all honesty, should have remained in the proverbial film closet. But I still approach each and every film I review (and even those that I don’t) with an open mind, in hopes that the next movie will be one that is worth shouting from the rooftops about.

The Owls, (an acronym for older, wiser lesbians), is what you might call an experimental thriller, the product of an all-star group of lesbian film icons working as The Film Collaborative. Guinevere Turner, (Itty Bitty Titty Committee, The L Word) Skyler Cooper, V.S. Brodie, (Go Fish) star, alongside writer/producer Cheryl Dunye (famous for 1996 indie sensation The Watermelon Woman).

With several co-producers and producers, there are many cooks in the proverbial kitchen, and many of the main creatives share roles, making good on the "collaborative" title. As such, it's a multi-layered, unique and thoroughly original project – part queer film criticism and part tense, enjoyable fiction.

The main storyline concerns the lives of four friends (though "frenemy" might be a more apt description), all washouts from the 1990s riot grrl/queer activist era. They are, ostensibly older, wiser lesbians (hence the title), though none of them can seem to get over...

Dunye directed the murderous, lesbian thriller The Owls starring Guinevere Turner, playing at the 2011 Palm Springs Film Festival January 6 - 17 with Larysa Kondracki's thriller The Whistleblower (starring Rachel Weisz) and Benedek Fliegauf's female-centric sci-fi story Womb.

An owl is gay slang for “older, wiser lesbian,” apparently (who knew? The gays did, that's who) and the plot of Dunye's murderous thriller involves two forty-something lesbian couples that share a convoluted incident in their past. An unexpected predicament in their present lives sets in motion a seriously uncertain future. starring Cheryl Dunye, Lisa Gornick, Guinevere Turner, V.S. Brodie, Deak Evgenkios, and Skyler Cooper. Who doesn't like lesbians??

Watch the trailer:

Larysa Kondracki's thriller The Whistleblower is based on a true story of an American cop (Rachel Weisz) who goes to Bosnia, where her job as a peacekeeper leads her to uncover a ring of human traffickers that includes fellow U.

Julianne Moore. Natalie Portman. Annette Bening. A few years ago, no one would have dreamed that such big, bankable names would be involved in pushing lesbian-inclusive cinema to the major studio mainstream, perhaps even to the promised land of the Oscars. But here we are at the end of 2010, and the future has never looked brighter.

With one truly breakout film, The Kids Are All Right, and high-profile projects including The Runaways, Black Swan, and the Millennium Trilogy, it seems that that queer female lead characters have finally made it into the cinematic forefront. Perhaps it's only a toehold, but it's a welcome trend, considering big-screen lesbians have most typically been portrayed as serial killers (Monster, Basic Instinct) or minor characters.

The lesbian movies are all right

For years, the lesbian movie-watching community has been waiting for "Dykeback Mountain" — that is, our own mainstream breakout in the vein of 2005's cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain.